May 1: AbUSed: The Postville Raid
6:30 PM – Student Center Room 204, San Jose City College, 2100 Moorpark Avenue, San Jose
Luis Argueta, 2010, 96 min
Personal stories in an Iowa town tell how government enforcement agents
engaged in the most brutal, expensive, and largest immigration raid in U.S. history and speak for the need for comprehensive immigration reform.
Reel Work May Day Labor Film Festival
Monday, May 6: The War on Whistleblowers
Busboys and Poets at 5th Street
1025 5th Street NW
Washington, DC 20001
email: streetheat@dclabor.org
DC Labor FilmFest
Not only is Big Brother now watching your every move, the Government is also preventing you from speaking out. This new full length documentary tells the dramatic stories of four people who were silenced and the journalists who were finally able to get their voices heard.
Introduced by Danielle Brian, Executive Director of the Project on Government Oversight (POGO); Q&A with Tom Tamm, the former attorney in the United States Department of Justice Office of Intelligence Policy and Review who blew the whistle on warrantless NSA surveillance consisting of eavesdropping on U.S. citizens.
May 4, 2013: We Work To Live! Live panel, comedy, live entertainment plus Australian & International Films
Gwyneville Workshop Theatre, 192 Gipps Street, Gwyneville, Wollongong, New South Wales
click on link below for complete festival line-up
Australian International Labour Film Festival
Directed by Lenny Feinberg & Chris Foster
83m; US
An in-depth look at the newspaper industry as it struggles to remain financially viable and to keep the presses rolling. Through the voices of prominent journalists including Bob Woodward of the Washington Post and David Carr of the New York Times, we reveal an industry in the midst of a financial death spiral, as readers abandon print for online news sources. We see publishers and editors desperately trying to create a sustainable business model for their dying papers.
Our film examines the importance journalism has on our society by following two fearless investigators into the badlands of North Philadelphia. With the economic crisis in the newsroom threatening to shutter their struggling tabloid, these courageous women bring down a dangerous and corrupt narcotics squad.
If the American newspaper dies, who will conduct investigative journalism, who will hold public officials accountable?
Click here to see the trailer
For more information on the film visit blackandwhiteanddeadallover.net
Writer / Director Ellin Jimmerson
Narrated by Martin Sheen
Run time: approximately 87 minutes
Anticipated release date is Winter, 2013
Sub-titled in English and Spanish
SYNOPSIS
Documentary about illegal immigration shot primarily in Alabama, Arizona, and northern Mexico. The premise is that Arizona is the new Alabama, the epicenter of an intense struggle for migrant justice. The documentary’s purpose is to bring basic immigration issues into focus. Those issues include the impact of free trade agreements on migration, the lack of a legal way for poor Latin Americans to come to the United States, the inherent abuses of the guest worker program, the fact that many migrants are indigenous people, anti-immigrant politics, the reality of thousands of migrant deaths at the border, and an escalating ideology of the border.
The Second Cooler raises the question “Who benefits?” from illegal migration. It has interviews with 25 illegal migrants, including three children under the age of 12. It follows several of them throughout the film. In addition, it includes interviews with 55 professionals including historians, lawyers, clergy, labor union organizers, politicians, a Border Patrol agent, human rights advocates and others who untangle the threads of a complicated issue. When a viewer reaches the end of The Second Cooler, he or she will understand why 12 million migrants are in the United States illegally and will be able to offer an informed answer to the question, “Who benefits?”
Ireland | 2012 | 45mins | Colour
The 16th of December 2011 was to be the final day for workers at the Vita Cortex plant in Cork. Their redundancy payments had been agreed but in the final days of their employment they were informed that the payments could not or would not be made. A decision was made to occupy the plant which they did for 161 days, one of the longest running industrial disputes in the history of the Irish state.
The campaign attracted support from football stars Alex Ferguson and Paul McGrath, former President Mary Robinson, actor Cillian Murphy and philosopher Noam Chomsky.
This is the story of the occupation.
Producer Barra O’Connell
Print Sourceinfo@wildacre.ie
Directed by Jean Tsien & Joshua Z Weinstein
Run time: 53 min. | USA
It takes persistence to run a taxi service in New York City, and new drivers are always needed. Long hours, disrespectful customers and the blinding snow of a blizzard are just some of the challenges they must face. DRIVERS WANTED explores the daily workings of one Queens garage as a new driver transitions from double-decker tour buses to taxis. Throughout it all, 90-year-old Johnnie “Spider” Footman keeps showing up for work. – MRR
Joshuazweinstein@gmail.com
WeinsteinFilm.com
Time: 90 min.
Director: Kevin Fraser
Producer: Kevin Fraser
Country: Canada
Language: English
“Living as Brothers” looks at the lives of Jamaican migrant men toiling in the orchards of Niagara-on-the-Lake, unseen by the thousands of tourists who descend on the small town each year. In their own words, these men, some of whom have been returning for over twenty years, tell of the second life they’ve created for themselves in Canada, the reasons for their making this journey, and their struggles back in rural Jamaica. Told over a season of picking fruit, their story is arduous, stressful, and precarious, one that offers few second chances.
http://www.kevinfraser.ca/index.html
www.kevinfraser.ca/livingasbrothers/
http://www.whatsupyukon.com/article-view.cfm?ArticleID=1484
http://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/2012/11/16/filmmaker-tells-niagara-farmings-untold-stories
Contact: Kevin Fraser
THE LABOR FILM DATABASE 